You Are Dumb, which is not a blog, posts new columns when it can manage to in these troubled Trumpian times. It is also a Twitter feed, @youaredumb, with content in a similar vein but much shorter. For a take on what a blog by me would be like, check out OLDNERD.

December 29th

And we close out Year Three of You Are Dumb Dot Net with a game that is both near and dear to my cold, black heart. CREATIONIST WHACK-A-MOLE.

As I mentioned yesterday, Christmas has gotten the young-earthers a bit antsy in their pantsies. Though they should be cowed by losses in Dover and Georgia and elsewhere, recognition of facts is not their strong suit. Or their weak suit. Or any kind of suit at all. At best, it's a tiny scrap of fabric barely adequate to cover their strange, misshapen genitalia.

So they're still fighting. And when the Star-Tribune posted an editorial, five days before Christmas, pointing out that the stupid and wrong woman we discussed yesterday was in fact stupid and wrong, oh, did they get cranky. Upset, even. I'm sure dozens of them wrote letters, and the Strib, feeling the need to be fair and balanced, published the three that weren't in crayon.

Taken together, they really run the gamut of what passes for creationist thought in the modern era. First up is Hap Corbett of Staples, MN, a man whose name really should have qualified him for his own radio serial in the 40s. The Adventures of Hap Corbett, sponsored by Cream Of Wheat. Hap presents, completely unironically, the First Gotcha:

"Nothing can evolve without something to evolve from. The question evolutionists and Star Tribune editorial writers never answer is: From what did the very first element evolve? A creator, perhaps?"

There is a scientific answer to this question. It's called the Who Gives A Shit Theorem. That the origins of life are still a bit murky, scientifically, is irrelevant to "proving" or "disproving" evolution. That would be like going up to a gold medalist in the hundred-yard-dash and demanding he relinquish his medal because you didn't hear the starter pistol. No race can happen without a starter pistol going off, after all, and since you didn't hear the pistol, the very idea that human beings might race against each other is ridiculous.

We then move on to Ronald Roberts of Plymouth, a Yaygod who embodies the common creationist belief that scientists don't actually do anything. Creationists think scientists are just like regular folks - they sit around, drinking coffee, pondering shit, writing some of it down, then congratulating themselves on how clever they are before collecting a big fat paycheck from Secular Communism, Inc. Nothing else explains his ridiculous attempt to equate creationist belief with scientific study:

"People of faith see substantive proof in the things that have been created -- i.e., the rhythm of the seasons, the order of the universe, the intricate systems in the human body. We say all of these are clear evidence that divine, intelligent design was the root cause. Evolutionists must theorize about the root cause."

You guys at Nature? Pack it in. Stephen Hawking? Take a long vacation. RONALD MOTHERFUCKING ROBERTS sees God in the rhythm of the seasons! Why do we even need science classes? Just have Ronald Motherfucking Roberts go from school to school, explaining that winter comes after fall, and therefore, GOD. Melt all the Cosmos DVDs and replace them with copies of fucking PIPPIN. They're not even trying. Why can't I, just once, see a big pile of pretentious creationism, full of pseudoscience and faux intellectualism, that actually strives to pretend to be as well-explored as decades of serious study?

"These discoveries include the decoding of DNA, the vast complexity of microorganisms understood only through modern molecular biology, the complete lack of fossil records supporting Darwin's theory, and conversely, the Cambrian explosion in the fossil records that directly contradicts Darwin's theory... So, it turns out evolution is still very much a "hypothesis," becoming less and less a "theory" and certainly not a "truth," with each new scientific discovery about the wonder of life. Funny how "science" becomes a double-edge sword, isn't it?"

Whoa! That's the stuff! Thank you ever so much, Chris Gardner! Your claim to accept the existence of DNA shows you to be a true urban and urbane resident of Minneapolis, and not some suburban hick.

Pity that all that fancy wording can't hide another classic creationist flaw. You see, the Bible is just as true now as it was thousands of years ago when it was written. It hasn't experienced, oh, how shall I put this... significant changes over time. Nobody's really expanded on the Bible. So, if you want to discredit the Bible, you have to go back to the original author, who we are led to believe is in fact infallible, so ha ha, fuck you for trying.

This is why so many creationists obsess over Charles Darwin. They see him as the God-Author of all of Evolutionism. Not because he is, but because that's how their brains are wired. And since Darwin was neither divine nor infallible, they figure if they can expose one Darwinian fuckup, they'll have singlehandedly dismantled evolution from the foundation up, and all the other Jesusphiles will hoist them on their shoulders and carry them off the field.

So even assuming a bunch of the stuff he was talking about wasn't, you know. Made up. Yanked from his lower assal region. Even allowing for that, taking Darwin out doesn't change the work of the thousands and thousands of people who've done their OWN work on the subject. So no hoisting for you, Mr. Gardner. Back into your six-thousand-year-old hole.

So here's to 2007, and the hope that one of the few positive trends in 2006 will continue - creationists getting kicked in their collective godsack OVER and OVER and OVER again by the few remaining rational elements of American infrastructure.